Dovetail
by hana-akira
Summary: To join or fit together compactly or harmoniously. – —Ryoga/Ryoma, 1sentence?, Theme Set Delta, incest that's not incest


Fandom: Prince of Tennis  
Title: Dovetail  
Author: hana-akira AKA rurichi  
Character: Echizen Ryoga, Echizen Ryoma  
Genre: Romance, General  
Rating: 19+  
Warning: OOC, AU, boy liking another boy, incest that's not incest, sexual content mentioned or implied  
Prompt: 1sentence LJ Theme Set Delta, Ryoga/Ryoma  
Summary: To join or fit together compactly or harmoniously. – —Ryoga/Ryoma, 1sentence?, Theme Set Delta, incest that's not incest

A/N: Originally done for the 1sentence challenge, but since because I'm bad with rules, I didn't do one sentences so that's why it's not posted at the community. Ryoga is adopted, so it's technically only incest in name, even if they do look alike. "Chibisuke" (or "Chibi-suke"—I will be writing it as the former) when translated from Romaji roughly means "shorty" and is used by Ryoga, from what I believe, as an endearment for Ryoma. "Aniki" means "big brother".

—

#01 – Air

When the wind blows away the person's white cap off their head and suddenly reveals themselves to be his "little brother", Ryoga can't help but feel that the air in his throat abruptly disappear as his breath is literally taken away. Still, he tosses the orange in his hand up and down, the figure of a young boy lying down on the pool lounge chair continuing to mumble in his sleep, and nothing changes at all.

#02 – Apples

Personally, in Ryoga's opinion, apples could never compare to the wonderful wonder that were oranges, but if his younger brother kept eating apples in that cute, messy manner, he could see himself coming to like the red fruit.

#03 – Beginning

"Careful—I might just start to like you," Ryoga had teased, and really, Ryoma reflects later on, that was the beginning of when everything just started to go a little weird and out there.

#04 – Bugs

What bugs Ryoma the most isn't that Ryoga pays a particular and special attention to females like the old man does to the ones in his magazines (he does know, after all, that it's _natural_ for older males to have such… inclinations), but when that sort of interest is on _him_ besides the times when they're playing tennis.

It still chafes at his skin when the older boy randomly gets up close to his face, no regard or consideration for personal space, that at times it turns his slight discomfort to something that's vaguely like deep resentment.

#05 – Coffee

It's not that he hates coffee or anything—it's just that he preferred to smelling it rather than drinking it because its smell was honestly much better than its taste, yet it still takes Ryoga pleasantly by surprise when his younger brother presses chaste kisses at the corner of his mouth that tastes like a mix of coffee and orange, and finds himself actually liking the bitter yet spicy flavor.

#06 – Dark

_Surely everyone has darkness hidden somewhere in their hearts_, Ryoma thinks, in a bid to try to console himself, but the thought is fleeting and everything is buried underneath once more when he sees that the old man and his "older brother" are playing against each other again without noticing his presence at the edge of the tennis court.

#07 – Despair

_Every day, I realize more and more that I don't matter to you, and it hurts._ Ryoma writes at his desk in his room, the lamp on his desk illuminating only his form, before throwing the paper into the wastebasket in frustration—not knowing that with his door slightly ajar, his older brother was silently staring at him, thinking darkly about the person who was causing his little brother to react so strongly.

#08 – Doors

Chibisuke's door is always closed, and even though it's never locked, Ryoga doesn't understand why it makes him uncomfortable when he doesn't knock first before opening it.

#09 – Drink

Ryoma drank greedily from the can of grape-flavored Ponta, his adam's apple bobbing quickly up and down, and Ryoga could only cross his legs tighter and think what it would be like if the younger boy was greedily drinking something _else_.

#10 – Duty

"Honestly," Ryoga states to the younger boy with a sigh, all practiced resignation and exhaustion, "you're the only one I've ever spent this much time and effort on." Ryoma snorted, unimpressed by the other boy's admission.

"Sure, but how much was that time willing spent than just your duty as an 'older brother' ?"

#11 – Earth

Even if he's face first in the earth and dirt is all over his clothes, he won't let Ryoga win—even if it's only because he refused to lose against anyone that wasn't the old man and for the pleasure of wiping that smirk off his face.

#12 – End

"Game, set, and match," Ryoma gasped out breathlessly on his hands and knees, panting like he had run across all of Japan without stopping, and the only thing Ryoga could do was just lie down on his back and think that even though the game was over, it was actually fun for once.

#13 – Fall

Ryoga knows it's the fall of an era and the beginning of something new when he loses to his younger brother, but the world is still moving so he has to keep moving, too, even if the only thing he's going to do now is chase after Chibisuke.

#14 – Fire

"Maybe you should bet on me, too," Ryoma taunts nonchalantly to Ryoga, daring and tantalizing, eyes simmering with some dark emotion; and for a moment, Ryoga wondered what it would take to set those eyes ablaze with something much… darker.

#15 – Flexible

"Amazing," Ryoga praises reverently, his throat suddenly too dry and his cheeks too warm, and he can't help but think that Chibisuke's tennis wasn't the only thing that improved when he saw that lithe body arch like _that_.

#16 – Flying

Driving on a motorcycle feels like flying—exhilarating, heart-stopping_, mind-blowing_—and Ryoga can't help but go that extra mile faster even as Ryoma holds onto him tighter, shouting, "Slow down you idiot! You're already _100 miles over the speed limit_!"

#17 – Food

His older brother smirks at him, saying, "You've got a little bit of food on your face," before licking at the corner of his mouth where stray pieces of rice of the sushi were and quickly backing off, and all the younger male can do is rub furiously at his cheek and think in disgust of how many places that tongue that licked him had been.

#18 – Foot

It's only a foot massage and really, Ryoma thinks—still unsuccessfully trying to smother his moans by biting his bottom lip and grasping the bedsheets underneath him tightly—it's nothing out of the ordinary, but it doesn't change the fact that it feels really good that it makes him want to writhe all over and that Ryoga (_Ryoga!_) has had this strange expression on his face ever since he started the foot massage.

#19 – Grave

"I missed a lot of things," the older dark green teal-haired boy states gravely to the younger boy, his hazel eyes serious and resolute, "and one of them was you."

#20 – Green

Maybe it's teal or maybe it's dark green, but whatever color it is, it still, for some reason, makes Ryoga feel warm and giddy inside knowing that his hair color is the same as his "younger brother's".

#21 – Head

_Turn this way_, Ryoga thinks when he sees a familiar head of dark green and teal, and a young boy wearing a white turns his head slightly, as if someone had called his name.

#22 – Hollow

Even as the taller boy who was in all ways a literal stranger to him says, "To be honest, I had forgotten about you," Ryoma felt something inside him make a hollow echo, not unlike the sounds one made when dragging a pen across metal lockers in a school corridor.

#23 – Honor

Ryoga never really had any honor. He used Echizen Nanjiroh so that he would have an identity, used Sakurafubuki Hikomaro to get money, and then used Byoudin Houou just so that he would get free transportation to Japan—later abandoning them all—not that they were that much better than him. So it's not surprising nor a shock that he has no compunctions at all to have his only baby brother to himself.

#24 – Hope

Ryoma hopes quietly, as he receives yet another postcard of some far away place from his older brother, that one day Ryoga will take him with him on his "trips", if only so that these feelings of drifting apart and distance would finally go away.

#25 – Light

He woke up to the sun high above him and as he tried to grasp the light with his hand, all Ryoma wondered about who was this "Ryoga" to him that he would appear in his dream.

#26 – Lost

"Learn to make yourself happy," the psychosomatics book says, but what does that mean? Ryoma, at a loss, shoves the textbook away in favor of watching the old man and his "older brother" play tennis instead even if it irritates him to watch it.

#27 – Metal

Ryoga blinked, immediately noticing his necklace on Chibisuke's neck, and simply continued to stare in fascination at how the metallic parts on the necklace complemented his little brother's skin tone.

#28 - New

"I fell in love. It was completely new to me—"

Ryoga slammed the book shut, his entire face dusted with a faint pink, his right hand covering his mouth, and could, for the life of him, not understand why a certain shorty with dark green hair and honey-colored eyes instantly came to mind.

#29 – Old

No matter how many times Ryoga does it, it never gets old for him to call Ryoma "Chibisuke" and have the younger boy's lips twist slightly in annoyance and his eyes turn into a molten aurulent color.

#30 – Peace

_I can get used to this_, Ryoga thinks as he's lying down on his back on the grass, the Himalayan cat curling up on one side of him and Chibisuke cuddling the other—just another peaceful day in the country of Japan.

#31 – Poison

"Your words are poison," the younger teal-haired boy states bluntly, straight face and blank hazel eyes flecked with gold, and Ryoga can only smirk darkly even as an abysmal bitterness wells up inside him at the knowledge that he had dug up his own grave.

#32 – Pretty

"You were cuter when you were younger," the taller teal-haired boy complains offhandedly before their match starts, but the only response Ryoma gives is the action of his cap tipping lower over his eyes, shadowing them.

(He never tells Ryoga that he never wanted to be considered cute because being cute meant that you were a _child_, which was then associated with being _childish_.)

#33 – Rain

After all the chasing and the yelling and the crying that's drowned out by sound of the pouring rain, all it takes is for Ryoma to say is "Do what you want," for Ryoga to become speechless.

#34 – Regret

"Go ahead. Forget me," Ryoma says blandly, already turning and shrugging away, already moving on because he has no use for anyone who was going to leave anyway to remember him; all bright and dark at once.

Ryoga, naturally, immediately regrets ever saying the words he said when he sees that Ryoma does not need others in order to live.

#35 – Roses

_Stop making me smile when I'm pissed at you_, Ryoma wants to say, struggling to hold his composure, but finally loses it when his Aniki gets down into a dogeza and presents him a bouquet of orange roses containing fortune cookie sayings with his head still bowed down—still desperately mumbling apologies and pleads for mercy.

#36 – Secret

"I think, before anything else, I should confess something," Ryoga admits quietly to Ryoma once they were finally able to find somewhere private, and the younger boy couldn't help but be immediately wary when he realized that the older boy wasn't joking.

#37 – Snakes

He snakes an arm around his little brother's waist, lifting the slimmer and lighter body up, and grins in amusement as the younger boy cursed and swore at him in every language, his small fists hitting ferociously at his back.

#38 – Snow

The elder Echizen brother is still immature since things like snow still excite him, yet even though the Ryoga is childish, Ryoma always goes wordlessly with every play in the snow that his Aniki comes up with—making snow angels, building snow forts and snow men and all rest.

#39 – Solid

Ryoga's form is a solid presence, and this truth is drilled even more so into Ryoma's head when he wakes up in the morning and finds the older boy's body literally on top of him along with Karupin adding to the deadweight on his stomach.

#40 – Spring

After observing all the Japanese festivals celebrated in season of spring, Ryoga could literally drool at all the fantasies he had of Chibisuke dressing up in that kimono or this clothing garment—that hair ornament or those shoes.

#41 – Stable

"I know what you hate so I do it constantly," Ryoga whispers flirtingly at the shell of Ryoma's ear, and Ryoma knows, if nothing else, this will always be the one stable, unchangeable truth about their relationship.

#42 – Strange

The more time Ryoma spends with "Ryoga", the more he notices that his "older brother" continuously has this strange expression on his face when he's around him—not unlike Fuji-senpai's when he's around his younger brother Yuuta. Whatever his "big brother" is thinking, Ryoma eventually decides after observing carefully the dynamics of the Fuji brothers' "relationship", he probably does not want to know.

#43 – Summer

"This is kind of nostalgic, isn't it?" Ryoga says in sentimental reminiscence, a wistful look on his face, and Ryoma nods his head in assent when both of them look upon the house with orange trees by the sea that they had lived at in that summer long ago.

#44 - Taboo

It should've been wrong, what he was feeling for his "little brother", but Ryoga couldn't bring himself to care much since technically they weren't related by blood and were really only connected by name. And if Echizen Nanjiroh still wanted to keep the farce up, who was Ryoga to stop him? Ryoga would still get Ryoma, blood-related or no.

#45 – Ugly

"Your shirt is ugly so it has to go," Ryoma says matter-of-factly to the older boy—blunt, honest, and casual—hands already unbuttoning the fashion monstrosity, "but you can stay."

#46 – War

Ryoma always wants _more__**more**_**MORE** and it this _incentive_, this _abundance of motivation_ that causes him to be in a mood for total war with Ryoga even when he knows there's no point in playing against people who just aren't interested.

#47 – Water

Ryoga, like water, will always need to be free and it is this certainty alone that prevents Ryoma from ever following the taller boy into the depths of the sea whenever the older boy decides to jump over the fence of their home.

#48 – Welcome

"Really, Chibisuke, was that necessary?" Ryoga whined, rubbing at his reddened cheek on his face that was still smarting from his little brother's slap. Ryoma simply huffed in aggravation, refusing to look at the other boy because seriously, what kind of greeting was it when your older brother suddenly, from behind you, grabbed you by the balls to give you a 'ballsy greeting'?

#49 – Winter

"Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas Eve~!" Ryoga sings happily, joyful and elated with unrestrained cheer as he hugs his younger brother, the shorter boy thoroughly dazed, bewildered, and dismayed at the red, green, gold, and silver decorations strewn all over his room which had looked perfectly normal the day before.

#50 – Wood

And although he knew that something was going on with his older brother, it still takes Ryoma by surprise when Ryoga slams him against the wooden wall and says; "We're not just siblings anymore," and proceeds to show him, hands-on, _why_ exactly they're not just siblings anymore.

—

A/N: Footnotes ahoy!

#14 — Ryoma says these words before his and Ryoga's tennis match in the Futari no Samurai movie.

#18 — In case you were confused (as I was when I reread it and in the end didn't know how to change it), Ryoga is giving Ryoma a foot massage.

#22 — I believe what Ryoga says here is from the Futari no Samurai movie after Ryoma beats Ryoga and Ryoga talks a bit after his defeat.

#27 — When Ryoga is first introduced, he's shown to be wearing a necklace of some sort that's yellow, blue, and brown. Not entirely sure if it's metal or not.

#32 — Ryoga says these words after Ryoma suggests Ryoga to bet on him in the Futari no Samurai movie.


End file.
